


Y.O.L.O

by orphan_account



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Supernatural Elements, obviously, this is so not as serious as it seems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:56:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3442901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So mythical creatures aren't quite so mythical and Eggsy is bollocks deep in suspicious green slime when he finally realizes that maybe this whole thing isn't all it's cracked up to be. No amount of showering will ever scrub away the feeling of slime on his sensitive bits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i really just.... wanted a vampire au. it's something about the suits and the power kind of thing. ratings likely gonna be bumped up a whole lot in later chapters.

For Eggsy’s seventh birthday, he got a box of ashes delivered to his doorstep. His mother looked haunted for the next three weeks until a strange man visited. Eggsy doesn’t remember much of it, now. His mother had cried, he remembers, and he had been given a whistle with instructions to blow into it _only_ in the most dire of emergencies. His father never returned from Afghanistan.

For Eggsy’s tenth birthday, he got a black eye. It was the first time he learned that talking back to his stepfather meant pain for Eggsy and tears for mum. Dean drank himself into a slumber while Eggsy ate a fancy cupcake his mother had been hiding away money for. He dropped out of gymnastics.

For Eggsy’s fifteenth birthday, he got stabbed in the abdomen. His mother cried to him in the hospital, but couldn’t bring herself to reprimand him. After all, she said, it was her fault he was in this situation. He didn’t like when she apologized. He rested his hand above the wound and didn’t say a word about the thousands he had in savings from pushing drugs. He would get them out.

For Eggsy’s sixteenth birthday, he got a sister. He looked down at the fragile child and wished she had never been born. No one deserved to grow up like this. He got into harder crime, squirrelling away more and more money. His sister would only have memories of a life of luxury, if he could help it.

For Eggsy’s eighteenth birthday, he got a broken nose. Dean found the savings and spent it on an used car. His mother had never looked so destroyed. He joined the Marines.

It’s two weeks after Eggsy’s nineteenth birthday when he steals the car from one of Dean’s goons. He’s given up on caring about his life, ever since he dropped from the military and found himself right back where he started years ago. His friends are along for the ride, and that’s the only reason he doesn’t just drive himself off the most convenient bridge.

Something about driving backwards through traffic is exhilarating. He knows he can do it, has had enough practice evading people. His friends are a mix of excited and terrified. He shouts his freedom to the rhythm of sirens and doubts he will ever feel as good as he does in that moment.

His eyes meet with a fox, sitting in the middle of the alleyway he’s just turned into, and he steers the car into a pile of rubbish rather than take an innocent life. He tells his friends to run and thinks about how fucking typical this is. His fingers twitch with the knowledge that there’s a pistol in the dashboard and no reason left for him to stay here. He goes willingly.

The night he spends in jail is uneventful and hardly his first time being there. The officer who speaks to him has done this with him time and time again. He tells him Dean can’t get him out of this one, and he’s glad to not owe that man any more favors.

He doesn’t take a phone call, in the end. Instead he pulls the chain from under his shirt and looks at the whistle dangling from it with resignation. He blows into it with all he’s got, all his hope going with it.

There’s no sound.

He tucks the apparently broken whistle back into his shirt and wonders if it’s too late to get a lawyer. Is “they’re a buncha cocks” a reasonable plea? Probably not.

Two hours later the officer comes back into the holding room, bringing an aura of discontent with him. He undoes his handcuffs, and tells him to get the hell out and try not to come back. Eggsy isn’t sure how to feel after that. He’s at least relieved that he seems to have been spared from prison, but what does he have to look forward to? A broken home. Dean will be pissed for sure.

He sighs heavily. His steps are heavy as he leaves the building, more familiar than it should be, and he lingers on the stairs. The clouds are heavy and gray, foreshadowing what will probably be a fierce storm. The air is very still, however. Almost eerily so. Instinctively he tugs on his jacket and begins the trek home.

“Eggsy, is it?” a posh voice sounds from next to him. He tries not to startle right out of his skin, but he usually has fantastic situational awareness. For him to not have noticed the man until he spoke says loads about how distracted he is. He eyes the man suspiciously. Wouldn’t surprise him if Dean finally hired someone to off him.

He looks the part of an unassuming assassin, in his well-tailored suit, pristine hair, and thick rimmed glasses. Upper class and faultless to a fault. His smile is polite, but something about it seems sharp and dangerous without outwardly appearing as so. If Eggsy’s first thought had been,’I’m going to die,’ his second one is ‘I’d give my soul to fuck him first.’

“Who’re you?” he asks, because he’s never been inclined towards manners, given the life he’s been raised into. The man arches an eyebrow smoothly and though his expression is mainly neutral, he gives off a vibe of amusement. He stands smoothly from where’d he’d been leaning against the wall, a subtle display of gracefulness. In his hand he holds an umbrella.

“The man who got you out of there,” he says simply.

So much for an explanation. Possibly not there to off him, then. He frowns. “Too bad that ain’t what I asked.”

This will either go one or two ways, both of them possibly ending with Eggsy’s body being tossed into a river. No need for him to tamper down his attitude just for some posh stranger who don’t know tits from arse about life.

“Harry Hart. I gave you that whistle you wear around your neck.” Eggsy reaches up to feel the whistle, and is surprised to find it’s still inside his shirt. So, then how… “Your father saved my life.”

Maybe it’s a lie, perfectly crafted to elicit the best emotional response from Eggsy that would leave him willing to go anywhere with this _Harry._ Maybe he’ll finally know about his father. Either way, he finds himself seated at a table in the pub, nursing an ale while Harry drains his at an alarming speed. His drink smells sharp, likely to do with whatever it was he poured into the glass once he got it.

His father was military, he knows that much, but this man seems too old to have served alongside him, unless he was an officer. He doesn’t strike Eggsy as the type. Regardless, he can’t help leaning in excitedly. His father’s legacy is the only good thing about himself, he thinks.

“So you served with my dad? Where were you guys stationed? Were you an officer?”

His questions spill out of him in rapid fire and he wants to know more, more, more. Harry takes them in stride, it seems, though he offers nothing more of an “I’m afraid that’s classified, Eggsy.”

Harry seems sincere about his apology, at least. Eggsy’s face softens into something full of pride and happiness. Warm memories of a smiling man unfurl in his mind and he figures, classified or no, his father was a great guy. “He saved your life though, yeah?”

“Your father was a good man, Eggsy.” Harry pauses to adjust his glasses. “One, I think, who wouldn’t be proud of how you turned out.”

Eggsy’s easy and relaxed nature turns hard at once, and he sits up straighter. “You don’t know nuffin ‘bout my life.”

“On the contrary,” Harry counters, “I do. Excellent marks in primary school, highly skilled in gymnastics with the potential, your teacher claimed, to be Olympic. Only to devolve into a life of crime, drugs, and the likes.”

Eggsy grinds his teeth. “Yeah well, it’s real fuckin’ easy to judge up there on your high horse when you were born with a silver spoon up your arse. But some of us ain’t so lucky. We ain’t got no choice but to do things we ain’t wanna do if we wanna eat the next day. We didn’t get a head start in life and we struggle for weeks to make the kinda money you lot make in an hour.” He sags back into his seat and the anger drains out of him, leaving a hollow ache in him. He finishes, quietly, with: “We ain’t all bad.”

The other man says nothing, taking another long drink of his lager. In what Eggsy can only describe as “fucking typical” fashion, the door to the pub is kicked open by Dean’s ugly goons. Eggsy is on alert, glancing nervously at Harry who seems completely blasé.

“Oi, you fuckin’ tosser. Boss says you’re fair game now cause ‘o the car,” the taller one says with a shit eating grin. The others look on in stereotypical henchmen fashion.  They saunter closer and Harry seems to finally take notice of them. He sets his drink down once they’re closer.

“Gentlemen, if you don’t mind, I’ve had a very emotional day and I’d like to finish my drink in peace.”

The taller one sneers. “You should get outa here, old man.”

Eggsy looks over to the older man and nods. Harry might be rude, privileged out the arse, but he doesn’t deserve to get caught up in Eggsy’s mess. No reason for someone innocent to get hurt. He won’t hold any hard feelings. “He’s right, yeah. You should go.”

Harry studies his face, and seems to find whatever it is he’s looking for, because he nods and stands to leave. The men part for him, knowing better than to get someone like Harry tangled up in this, and Eggsy braces for whatever fight is about to happen.

“Oi, if you’re looking for another rent boy, they’re up on Fifth!” He shouts after Harry. Then, quieter, to Eggsy, “We’re gonna have fun with you.”

Harry stiffens then continues towards the door. Instead of leaving, as expected, he begins to slide the locks into place. “Manners. Maketh. Man.” His words are spoken softly but they carry across the room perfectly. He turns. “Do you know what that means?”

What happens next, happens too fast for Eggsy to even track. One second they’re all stationary, the next, everything is a blur of movement and bright red blood. It can’t even have been a minute when everything seems to stop and Harry stands in the middle of a pile of bodies, breathing but only barely so. He tries to scuff blood from his shoes and when he sneers, Eggsy catches sight of a seriously fucking huge set of fucking fangs, holy _shit._

The bartender tries to calmly dial for the police but Harry is faster, behind the bar in the blink of an eye. He doesn’t move after that, but the man still collapses to the floor a second later.

Eggsy has no clue what the hell just happened, frozen to the spot. He’s surprised to note that it’s not quite from fear, so much as shock. Harry walks back to the seat slowly, probably ridiculously so, given how fast he’s capable of going. Eggsy says nothing as Harry finishes his drink.

“I found out I lost a colleague today,” he explains conversationally, as if the past few minutes never even happened. He glances to the side briefly and his polite smile softens. “I’m sorry I had to do that in front of you, Eggsy. And I’m sorry for what I’ll have to do next.”

He reaches forward slowly, at least decent enough to give Eggsy enough time to get a good idea of what’s about to happen and words spill out of his mouth before he can really process them. “No, no, no wait. I won’t tell anyone I swear. I’ve never snitched on someone in my life.” He realizes, he doesn’t want to lose the memories he has of his father, as well as this newfound knowledge and wonder that maybe the world isn’t quite how he’s been picturing it.

“You swear?” Harry asks, and his hand has stilled.

“On my father’s grave!”

He’s given one more searching look before Harry nods. He says nothing as he leaves the pub and Eggsy sits in that booth for a good half an hour, the only thought in his mind being ‘ _what the hell?_ ’


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys for the wonderful comments and kudos! :)

He checks the bodies first. It’s rule number one. Though there’s lots of blood, the injuries the goon’s sustained were fairly shallow and non-lethal. Probably intended to scare them rather than actually do damage. Their pulses are steady and Eggsy realizes that Harry probably just knocked them out. 

  
He leaves through the back and isn’t sure whether or not he should be surprised by the lack of police. He walks and walks and walks, thinking of a flash of sharp teeth and the metallic scent of blood, until he finds himself in front of his father’s grave. 

  
It’s hours that he spends sitting there, dreaming up a life that could have been. This dream world feels golden, warm and full of feelings that make Eggsy’s chest ache for something more. He pictures a happy family laughing with each other over something on the telly, eating meals together and telling stories about how their days were.  It passes, and the world is cold and black as he stumbles his way back to his own personal hell.

When he opens the door to his flat, his mother is right there, pleading with him to turn back, just go. He’s hurt for a few seconds until he realizes why. Dean grabs him by his shirt and hauls him against the fridge with enough force to knock his head back against it.

“Who the _fuck_ were you with today? Who did that to my men?” Dean demands, punching him square in the face before Eggsy even gets a chance to reply. There’ll be a black eye there by tomorrow, he knows, and he can feel a migraine already starting to bloom.

“I dunno what the hell you’re talking about!” he shouts back, because he’s no snitch and ain’t about to become one. Especially not to Dean.

Dean hits him again, this time in the gut and Eggsy has to choke back bile as he hunches in on himself. When he looks up again, Dean in there with a cleaver, looking about as angry as he’s ever seen him. “I could kill you right now and no one’d ever know! They wouldn’t even notice!”

Eggsy has a second to think ‘ _do it god please just fucking end it_ ’ before Dean’s being ripped away from him and tossed across the room like a ragdoll, apparently out of nowhere. Eggsy knows better. He’s out the door after one last kiss to his mother’s forehead, ignoring the way his whole body seems to be wracked with slight tremors.

Harry waits for him on the footway below, looking not at all like someone who just threw a grown man across a room and disappeared before anyone could even register what happened. Eggsy feels like a raw nerve, exposed, and it takes a lot of effort to compose himself into something resembling normal.

The other man seems to notice his shaking and wordlessly hands him his suit jacket. He isn’t cold but Eggsy slides it on nevertheless. “Thanks for uh, y’know.”

Harry begins to walk in steady strides, and Eggsy figures that’s as good an invite to follow as any. He hugs his arms to himself, ready to play it off as just being cold though he suspects that his companion knows better. He isn’t really sure where they’re going and the further that walk, the more time he has to think about his mom and sister. How he just left them without any word, without any protection. He grits his teeth.

“Your mother and sister will go to sleep tonight and wake up with the knowledge that you’re safe somewhere with a job. Your… the other man will wake up thinking he got black out drunk and hit his head, no knowledge that you ever returned today.”

Eggsy squints at Harry’s back. “What’re you, a fuckin’ mind reader or sumfin?”

He gets the impression of amusement again. “I’m many things, Eggsy, but a mind reader is not one of them. Your emotions are being broadcasted loud enough that one needn’t have telepathy to figure out what occupies your mind.”

He can roll with that. He grins, lopsided and asks, “So what are you, then?”

Harry doesn’t reply and Eggsy notices that they’ve arrived at a house, completely normal in all respects. It looks like every other posh place in this neighborhood. Eggsy isn’t impressed, and doesn’t think to reign that emotion in so that Harry doesn’t know. “You seem rather disappointed,” Harry comments as he opens the door to allow Eggsy entry.

“To be honest, I would’ve expected somefin more like gothic, y’know? All dark and mysterious, with some dungeons and shit.”

The inside of the house is normal as well, a very modern set up with not even a hint of a dungeon. He supposes that Harry himself is enough of an enigma to make up for it. As soon as that thought crosses his mind, Eggsy realizes he’s just followed a stranger into a strange house and no one would know he’s there. Sure Harry claims to know his dad, and even saved his arse a few times, but that doesn’t make him safe. He takes note of all the possible escape routes in the house, not entirely sure he’d even be able to outrun someone who can move faster than the mind can comprehend.

He’s just noted the large bay windows in the living room off to the right, and when he looks back over to where Harry was standing, the man is much _much_ closer. Eggsy jumps, heart rate sky rocketing. He’s about to ask just what the bloody hell is with him and that, when Harry places a single finger under his chin to tip his face up.

Huh. He hadn’t even realized how much taller the other man is. His words die down in this throat and the grin Harry gives him is far from the polite ones he’s seen so far. It’s positively wicked, feral and sharp and _holy god._ It’s not just fangs. It’s multiple teeth. All pointed and dangerous looking.

And just like that, the moment’s over. Harry steps back and is the picture of a well to do businessman all over again. Eggsy needs a few moments to recover from the experience.

“My jacket, if you would,” Harry requests with an outstretched hand. Eggsy shrugs it off, only now noticing the odd texture of the fabric as he hands it over. “Follow me, please.”

Harry leads him into his bedroom and really, could anyone blame Eggsy if his mind does an acrobatic fucking flip right into the gutter because come on. You can’t look like Harry does, and do the thing with the teeth, and bring him into the _bedroom_ and not expect that to happen. He’s only human. And…. maybe he does have a type. Something about the hint of terrifying but restrained power just—Harry clears his throat.

He opens to door to a rather large walk in closet and gestures for Eggsy to step inside. He does and gets the feeling it wasn’t so much of his own volition. his body stiffens in protest of the apparent manipulation of his free will but his feet keep taking him towards the back of the closet where a large mirror covers the entire back wall.

Eggsy stops in front of it as Harry comes up to stand behind him. He hadn’t really expected Harry to have a reflection but he does. Something is off about it though, like he can’t pick out any sort of distinguishing features. Or any at all really. If someone were to ask him to describe Harry just based off of what he’s seeing in the mirror, he would be completely unable to.

“You asked me earlier what I am. How familiar are you with 30 days of night?” The name doesn’t register with Eggsy so Harry tries again. “Underworld? …Twilight?”

Eggsy squints at him in the mirror, not entirely sure if Harry is just taking the piss at that point and Harry sort of half-shrugs. American movies. “Alright, maybe that wasn’t the best example. My point is, there are things out there that cannot be explained and people tend to react in fear towards that which they don’t understand.”

“Like Nosferatu, yeah?” Eggsy’s knowledge of old school horror movies is a bit excessive, but you tend to not have much options when cable is expensive and all you had as a kid was a VHS player.

 “Well, you’re certainly full of surprises.” Harry chuckles softly, and it’s such a nice sound that Eggsy practically beams at him. “What you’ve been seeing this past day is not who I am. We call it a glamour, something we can inherently do to mask the features that mark us as non-human. There are other uses, of course, but I try not to abuse that. A mirror is the only thing that will interfere with a glamour. If I were to drop my glamour, you’d see me for who I truly am. Is that what you want?”

Eggsy is far too excited about the prospect to even consider being anxious or afraid. This is easily the coolest possible thing to happen to him ever. He nods, mouth not able to form words. He doesn’t blink. He knows he doesn’t. He was making sure not to.

So when Harry’s so called glamour drops, it’s… It’s not like a sudden change, startling or rapid. It’s more like a fog has been lifted from his mind and he can now grasp at _detais_ of his face. And, oh wow.

He still looks like the self he was projecting, an older gentleman with pristine salt and pepper hair, a face with refined features and kindly laughter lines. But his irises are black, pupils blown wide open, making them seem ever larger. He is smiling and it’s with a mouth full of fangs, picture perfect and monstrous. Everything else is normal, but something about him seems otherworldly. There’s no specific reason for it, nothing Eggsy would ever be able to attribute to the feeling, but he just feels _off_.

“That is so fuckin’ brilliant! A vampire. That’s what you are, innit?” Harry seems mildly surprised by his lack of fear. Eggsy squints again in that questioning way of his. “D’you turn into a bat?”

Harry leans forward to press his hand to the glass beside Eggsy’s head. The boy watches his reflection as he leans forward to speak softly into his ear. Something behind the mirror clicks, but Eggsy finds it hard to concentrate on anything but the closeness of Harry, the warmth of his breath, the danger of sharp fangs hovering just above his jugular. He jerks back slightly, jabbing an accusing finger at Harry’s reflection. “You’re tryin’ to distract me!”

Harry offers a polite smile. “Very good, Eggsy.” He puts just a little more pressure on the mirror and it parts to reveal what looks like an elevator. Eggsy steps inside without hesitation, this time of his own free will.

There are no buttons on the inside, but as soon as Harry steps in, the doors slide closed and the elevator begins it’s descent. Eggsy turns to look at Harry, whose face isn’t glamoured, and asks, “So you said ‘we’ earlier. There are more of you?”

“Yes. We are known as Kingsman. We’re a…society of sorts. There’s a lot that goes on in what we call The Underground, and there are a lot of things out there that are worse than a vampire. Kingsman is dedicated to keeping the peace, both between humans and those otherwise.”

The elevator has kept moving during his explanation and Eggsy keeps glancing at the ceiling as if that will somehow tell them just how far down they’re going. Harry either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care because he continues, “Not all of us are vampires, of course. There are creatures of all sorts, if you can imagine. I won’t reveal their true identities to you. I’d like to see if you can do that for yourself. Any questions?”

Eggsy stops looking at the ceiling. “Yeah. Just how deep does this thing go?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i promise there will be much more romance and action and humor galore soon. i just gotta establish the basics of the story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter because i'm about to do a hell of a lot of world building for this fic in the next chapter. i figured i'd put this one out just in case it takes me some time to write the next chapter cause it'll probs be a long one. i'm still all a flutter over the comments you all leave <3 <3 i get anxious over replying to them but just know that i cherish them very dearly

The elevator, as it turns out, leads to some sort of tram which in turns leads to the most massive underground fucking bunker he’s ever seen in his life. There are all sorts of technologies scattered about that he didn't even know existed outside of sci-fi movies. The bare concrete walls are lined with deep scratches, scorch marks, and sticky substances Eggsy doesn't want to know anything about. He feels decidedly out of place amongst this surreal sort of world.

  
Harry’s looking at him and he realizes he’d just been asked a question. Without needing to be prompted, he repeats the question. “What would you say to joining?”  
Eggsy stops gawking at what looks like a death ray in one of the labs to the left of him and instead gawks at Harry. “You what? I’m human. Pretty sure I couldn't do shite against any of you.”

  
The smile Harry offers is polite, but now that Eggsy knows better, it seems to have a sinister edge to it. The hint of sharp teeth might have something to do with it. “We don’t all start off as the creatures we become. Some of us are born monsters, some of us choose to become them.”

It certainly sounds profound but—“Wait what?! You can just, what? Be like ‘y’know I wanna be a mermaid this morning. Better catch the next fish tank trolley to work’?”  
“Interesting choice, but I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that. I can’t tell you the specifics, but I believe you have the potential to make your life so much better than before. To finally turn things around in your favor.”

And how can he say no in the face of such sincere faith? He doesn't think anyone has ever really rooted for him since he was a kid. He gives a sardonic grin and shrugs. "You know I've got nothing to lose."

Harry takes him down a hallway, passing by lab rooms filled with all manner of things. Eggsy thinks he spies a gigantic rat in one of them, gnawing on something sickeningly similar to a human leg. He absolutely does not question it. He does, however, question the room filled to the brim with sex toys, muttering under his breath, "Didn't know it was that kinda party."

He receives nothing more than a passing glance from Harry at the comment. The man in question glances at his wrist, and though Eggsy sees no watch, he curses softly. "Shit, we're late."

The statement is confirmed by another immaculate looking bloke, though this one is bald. He's standing in front of what Eggsy guesses is a reinforced door. Harry introduces the man as Merlin and the first thing out of Eggsy's mouth when he shakes his hand is: "Human."

The two men look equally as puzzled as Eggsy feels at the outburst. Harry is the first to recover, giving the young man a nod. "Well done, Eggsy. Merlin here is indeed human, and our main source of information on all things monstrous, occult, or otherwise." He gives him an appraising look. "How could you tell?"

Eggsy shurgs, unaccustomed to so much praise in such a short period of time. "He doesn't feel the same, y'know?" To be honest, he doesn't really know how to explain it. Eggsy's always had pretty good instincts for sure, and is pretty quick on his feet. He never would have imagined it would apply to a situation like this however.

"Hold onto that particular skill," Merlin says, and opens the door.

Eggsy steps inside and it feels like a revelation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nice guesses on the meaning behind the title, but no one's quite guessed it yet :P btw, i'm on tumblr as 'sheminist' if anyone wants to hmu. i don't post chapters there but i do scream about my ideas a lot


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next few chapters are going to be more of a monster of the week type of deal, to give you guys a feel of how modern monsters operate in this universe and also to slide in some romance (and sass). i'm a sucker for slow build but i think i might be taking it too slow :P

The next few weeks are a bit of a blur. It's a lot like training with the Marines was, lots of physical resistance and mental resilience training as well as working with weapons. Muscles ache that he wasn’t even aware that he had and it thrills him to feel the gradual building of power. He was never out of shape, sure, but this feels different somehow. Honed towards a separate purpose than the Marines. He has no clue where he actually is, though he knows it’s secluded as all hell because shit likes to blow up.

Eggsy learns that his colleagues are all human (with the exception of Charlie who claims he’s 1/16th fae) as well as posh and the blokes are classist twats. Roxy is a nice bird and she overlooks his past and judges him based on his merit.

They lose a colleague-- no, she had been a friend. A nice woman named Amelia who couldn’t swim quite fast enough. Though they’d only known her for a short period of time, she had been kind and quick with a smile.

He and Roxy stick together after that, on tasks where they can choose partners. And when they get split up they don’t tend towards cruel competition, much to the annoyance of their fellow trainees.

All in all, it's pretty standard and Eggsy is bored out of his mind with it. He complains to Harry about it over tea. It's become sort of a ritual between them. Whenever they're both free, Harry will whisk him away to his office to discuss how the training is going and to offer advice. It's nice, having a mentor for once. Harry may be a bit of a git sometimes, always willing to offer advice but not willing to expand on it when it turns out being too cryptic for Eggsy to want to try and decipher. Personally, Eggsy thinks the man has repressed so much snark over the years and has decided to unload it upon Eggsy now that he knows that he can dish it as well as take it. Either that or he’s a sadistic fuck. And oh, isn’t that just a lovely picture?

So he complains. Harry tells him to suck it up.

Eggsy can hardly help but to lean forward in his chair, seated in front of Harry's desk. Because, let’s be real, his attraction towards the vampire has only multiplied with each evening. It certainly doesn’t help that Harry doesn’t bother to disguise himself when they’re together. There’s something about a polite monster that gets Eggsy going. It’s flirting with danger, because Harry might be endlessly patient, but he doesn’t let the boy forget that he could kill him without expending any effort. This particular evening, Harry seems to be savoring his drink more so than usual and Eggsy doesn’t miss the sharp copper smell that lingers faintly in the air and the red that stains the inside of Harry’s lips and contrasts so nicely with the flash of teeth he gets when he smirks.

Eggsy winks and in his best rent boy voice, purrs, "If you'd like."

Harry arches an eyebrow and Eggsy regrets every decision he’s ever made that led up to this moment because it feels very foreboding.

The next morning, the group finds themselves outside at 3 in the morning, looking at cages of, well. Eggsy honestly isn't sure. Among them, there's a tiny thing in there with wings that looks like a woman and he thinks she might be a fairy but who knows. One of the creatures that looks like a small chav keeps flinging tiny pebbles at Digby. There's also a writhing mass of black tentacles. It looks like spilled ink brought to sentience.

It’s terrifying. 

Merlin tells them to choose one of the creatures wisely, because they will be their own personal companion for the duration of the training. Eggsy asks what the tentacle ball does and Merlin replies, "It is an eldritch abomination. It whispers the secrets of the universes and speaks for the Outer Gods."

Right okay, because that totally adds to the desirability of this thing. He supposes endless knowledge could be useful and if you squint it could be kinda cute. In a ‘ _dear god I’ll tell you whatever you want just get that thing off my face_ ’ sort of way. ”So it talks?”

The creature expands until the cage looks like nothing more than a container for a black hole and makes an indescribable screeching noise that leaves Eggsy with a desire to claw his skin off and writhe on the ground.

No one picks that one and Eggsy practically shouts, “Why is that even a _thing_?!”

He ends up with a small creature that looks a bit like Dobby, except less jittery. Roxy has nothing.

“What, too good for one o’ these?” he jests with her.

“I’m Jewish,” she replies as if that explains anything at all ever. Good to know, but yeah. Still not an explanation. He’s about to ask what that even means until he happens to glance over his shoulder only to find a 214 centimeter tall fucking _clay man_ standing behind her. Let the record show that Eggsy is a fucking _brilliant_ spy/monser in training. He has top notch scores on all the tests so far.

He absolutely does not scream like some bird in a horror movie and jump a good three inches in the air.

“A golem,” Roxy explains while Eggsy struggles to make his treacherous body obey him. “I created him while you were trying to talk Rufus into breaking into Merlin’s office with you this morning. He’s very loyal and can carry out most tasks I’d need him for.” She looks over Eggsy’s tiny creature with an amused smirk. “An imp?”

He looks down at the thing, and it spits on his shoes. “It’s a house elf, innit?”

The pitying looks everyone shoots him tells him all he needs to know.

Merlin assigns them the task of having their companions assist them in completing at least one thing from a list of magical tasks, including but not limited to: create a potion that heals minor abrasions, summon a demon without being killed, find a magical item, and help Merlin dispose of the tiny eldritch horror.

Eggsy considers the last one up until he tries to poke it through the cage and its body warps around his finger and he gets a glance at what looks like a fucking pond through its body portal. He shakes his head profusely as he walks away. “Good luck with that one, guv!”

He regards his imp and it stares back up at him with golden eyes, sclera and all. Its skin is a darker bronze color, leathery looking and slightly wrinkled. It’s got pointy ears and a big nose. Its (his? her? their?) teeth are sharp and snarled as it grins up at him. Cute, Eggsy thinks. “So what d’you do, then?”

He watches in passive resignation as the piece of paper in his hand catches fire and slowly is reduced to a pile of ashes on the ground. His fingers are smudged with gray from the cinders. He looks back down at the imp. It grins up at him. Not so cute, he decides with finality.

“Right. Magical artifact it is. I used to be aces at scavenger hunts. How d’you feel about that?”

His imp looks up at him, looks around, looks _very_ annoyed, and finally holds its arms out like a child. Eggsy catches on and picks it up so it can scramble down his arm and perch on his shoulder. He feels that maybe he should have a cuteness meter so that he can decide how he feels about the thing depending upon how much of a tit it’s being.

“Do you talk?” he asks hesitantly. If this imp speaks like that eldritch thing had, he might just resign himself to a life of working in McDonalds with a minor case of amnesia.

“When it suits me,” it replies with a high, raspy voice. It’s startling, but not terrifying. He can work with that. “You got a name?”

Eggsy offers it his little finger to shake. “Eggsy Unwin.”

It huffs out a noise of annoyance but shakes the finger nonetheless. “Schatz.”

“…bless you?”

The noise is back and this time a swat to his ear accompanies it. Eggsy squawks his protest at the treatment. “My name. It’s Schatz.”

“Shats,” Eggsy repeats, completely butchering it with his accent. If the imp were inclined towards Christian religion, it would send out a prayer to the Virgin Mary to spare it from this human. Instead it asks Odin to send a crow to peck at the human’s ears while he’s asleep.

“Schatz.”

Eggsy frowns. Is that not what he said? “Shats,” he tries again, slower this time like that will help.

It does not. “Sch _a_ tz. Round your ‘a’ sound. In the back of the throat. It’s German, not English.”

He doesn’t get it right the third, fourth, or fifth time. They’re about to come to blows, Eggsy uncertain he’d even be the winner, when Roxy clears her throat and looks meaningfully at her watch. Right. Mission.

They come to a decision after that. Schatz will assist him in finding a magical artifact if he promises to at least _try_ and learn some German. He figures that’s fair enough and he soon finds himself being led to the edge of a massive forest just outside the yard’s parameters. “This wasn’t here an hour ago.”

“Of course not. You can’t find a magical item in just any old forest.”

Eggsy looks back to where their bunker had been, only to discover that it’s nowhere to be seen. He shrugs and begins the journey into the apparently magical forest.

They’re not even ten minutes into the trek when Eggsy asks, “So is Shats a boy name? Just wanna know what I should be calling you in my head.”

“Imps are genderless. ‘It’ will suit me just fine,” it responds matter-of-factly, as if this is common knowledge and everyone knows about imps and their concepts of gender or lack thereof. It might also be mad that Eggsy hasn’t gotten a handle of its name yet.

Eggsy nods, satisfied with the answer. “Y’know, this forest don’t feel very magical.”

He can’t see it, but he feels like he’s being side-eyed pretty hard right about now, and Schatz sighs heavily. As if in response to his complaint, a vine sneaks its way around his ankle and he does a nosedive into a bush that smells like sugar before he can catch himself. He twists onto his back to see Schatz flying above him, tiny leathery wings keeping him in the air, looking smugly amused.

“You can fly. Why the hell’ve you been hitchin’ a ride on me?”

It sniffs disdainfully at him. Very German, Eggsy notes. “Why tire myself with flying when I have a perfectly large human to sit on?”

He supposes he can’t argue with that logic. Not that he’s eager to try. Schatz’s favored method of persuasion seems to involve fire and threats to Eggsy’s trainers. He sits up and tugs at the vine while Schatz looks on unhelpfully. The vine feels like any other piece of fauna except this one is a stubborn piece of shite and doesn’t budge.

He tugs again.

It tightens.

“This is fuckin’ brilliant,” he says, and actually means it. This is so exciting for him. “Like some straight up Harry Potter shite. Think it can do some other stuff? Maybe grow a special kind of plant, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

Schatz would like to claim plausible deniability because Kingsman likes to follow human laws more often than not, but an iridescent plant springs up next to Eggsy and the human spends the next ten minutes trying to convince the imp to light the makeshift blunts he makes.

Twelve hours later, Eggsy stumbles out of the forest, high out of his mind with Schatz in tow. The imp is muttering to itself in German, a proverbial black cloud of disbelief hanging above its head. Merlin and the rest of the team are all waiting for him. It seems the rest of them settled for the simple task of creating a healing potion.

“Where on Earth have you—“ Merlin stops his sentence short, eyes widening at the sight of what it is that Eggsy has clutched in his hands. “Is that the fucking _Holy Grail_?”

Eggsy is seeing in colors he didn’t even know existed, and his grin is sloppy. “Fuckin’ bees knees, innit? Nice bloke gave it to me for a shag and a chance to get mashed offa this flower I found.”

Merlin looks like he’s torn between being highly impressed and righteously furious. The rest of his team, sans Roxy, give him grudging nods of approval. Roxy just looks exasperatedly fond.

He finds himself in a hospital room not too long after that. Merlin straps him to a hospital bed with firm instructions not to even attempt to move while he goes to put away the Fucking Holy Grail, as it’s come to be known in the ten minutes since he’s been back. Schatz has stopped muttering to itself and settles itself onto the foot of the bed, watching the door.

Harry strides in after a few minutes in which Eggsy tries very hard to figure out if the ceiling is actually transfigurating itself into a Van Gogh piece or not. Harry looks, oddly enough, as he always does. A clear and familiar face in a sea of what is probably the best trip of Eggsy’s life.

 “You smoked Datura, or it’s magical equivalent. The whole plant. The side effects include hyperthermia, excessive heart rate, an extreme sensitivity to light, and delirium. It also is known to be fatal. Just to fill you in on how much of a git you are.”

“Hyperthermia, huh? Thought it felt a bit warm in here,” he mumbles and Harry looks as incredulous as politeness will allow. “D’you see my prize, though? Worked pretty damn hard for that. Won’t be walkin’ proper for _days._ ”

Everything turns pink, and he thinks fuchsia is a rather lovely shade on Harry. Harry might be staring at him, but he might also be looking behind him. It’s rather hard to tell when someone has two heads. Both of which are gorgeous.

Eggsy has some _ideas_.

As if fate decided to intervene before Eggsy opened his mouth to explain said ideas, Merlin walks briskly back in and immediately begins to insert something into the IV in Eggsy’s arm. It feels icy cold as it spreads out in his bloodstream. He’s aware of Merlin speaking to Harry in low tones, but his main focus is the cold. It would be painful, he thinks, if he could feel pain in this moment.

“He did _what_?” And there’s Harry, once again the only thing of clarity in this room as the icy liquid starts to make things go fuzzy.

The lights go out.

He wakes up to Armageddon.

After five minutes of retching over the bedrail, he realizes that the world isn’t actually ending. He’s just suffering from what might be the most extreme hangover in his life. He feels personally attacked by the lights and fumbles for the assist button so someone can just come get him and bury him in a pit or something because honestly, fuck this.

It takes longer than he’d like, but it also gives him time to calm down and try to remember what happened the previous day. Most of it comes back to him. He’d gotten mashed in the forest on an apparently fucking deadly flower, stumbled his way through the magic forest until he’d come across a bloke who looked like he was sculpted by the Greek gods themselves.

The man had offered him a golden cup in exchange for a fun time, claiming it wasn’t often that humans visited him. And boy had that been a fun time.

Then he’d come back here and made an utter tit of himself in front of Harry. Well, everyone else too. But the most important one was Harry, because now he feels like an utter disappointment. He flings an arm over his face to stay the attack on his pupils, so hot he’d be content to be sent away to Russia as punishment. “Schatz?” he asks, sure to try his absolute best to pronounce it properly.

After a few moments, the imp makes a noise of acknowledgement.

“Just how fucked was I?”

It laughs, a high and bell-like sound that has Eggsy’s head feeling as if it’s about to split. “In the forest with the angel, or afterwards when you asked Mr. Hart just what he could do with those two heads?”

He’s going to vomit all over again.

“Wait, angel? As in _angel_ angel? Heaven’s holy host and all that? Tiny babies, tiny wings?” he balks, leaning over the rail to vomit. “Oh god I had sex with a baby.”

“You did not. He was decidedly not a baby, and what you two did was definitely not holy in any sense of the word.” Schatz is more amused by this than it has any right to be, terrible influence that it is. “You did manage to get yourself the Fucking Holy Grail, aptly named if you ask me.”

He did not ask it.

“That’s not too bad, innit? Harry might not disown me as his pupil if I managed to pull a stunt like that. He’ll probably say some shite about how my methods of acquiring it were completely shoddy and a disgrace to the whole of humanity and monsters alike.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far.” That is definitely Harry. Even if Eggsy wasn’t able to distinguish his voice from all others in any circumstance, he knows no one else would give a dying man a heart attack like this. “In fact, I’d say I’m rather impressed. It’s not every day that I get to say my pupil seduced an angel for the Holy Grail.”

“Bloody _Christ,_ ‘arry. Don’t need to be takin’ off any more years of my life.” A pause, and then, “Do you mean it, though? About me not being a failure?”

He thinks Harry sits at the chair beside his bed, but he’s not willing to open his eyes to see. Regardless, when he speaks, it comes from beside Eggsy’s bed. “Are you aware that your father was a vampire?”

Without thinking, he runs his tongue over his teeth and finds them dull. “No. Don’t remember much about ‘im.”

“He was very much like yourself, brash and bold and unafraid to challenge himself. He never showed any prejudice towards monsters and became rather fiercely protective of them. However, he also had your taste for danger. He nearly lost his life a few months into his training. He’d tried fighting a centaur who’d gone rogue, and was damn near killed for it. Granted, he was attempting to rescue an infant from it. I decided then that his was a life worth saving.”

Warmth unfurls at this new knowledge of his father, and he gets the urge to thank Harry for sharing the memory with him. “That’s right good n’all, but what does that have to do with me being a fuck up?”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Eggsy. Yours didn’t even have dire consequences, so as far as I’m concerned, you hardly even made one.” A hand rests on his forehead, icy cold. Unlike the fluid he’d been given yesterday, this is a cold that brings relief. “Though I’d wish you’d think more highly of your life than to so carelessly throw it away.”

Eggsy nods, speechless at the admission of fondness. He hadn’t really ever given a thought to the fact that his death might matter to someone.

The hand is removed and he reels from the loss. He thinks he can feel Harry stand from the seat and move away. Eggsy almost thinks he’s left until he speaks once more. “You know, it’s not every day that an angel gives away a sacred object. I think that speaks more to the merit of your character than any of your actions did.”

Eggsy is left to contemplate that in silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> schatz means 'treasure' in german. i know i said i get anxious over replying to comments but i am always willing to answer questions you guys have about things, especially if you feel something needs explaining.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> returns from the dead!!!?!?!?  
> actually i forgot the password to the laptop i typed this chapter on, so it's taken me a bit to get back on it and dig out this chapter because i hate rewriting things i already had a good idea of,,,, so back to regular posting intervals

Two days later is when Eggsy really starts to feel the effects of the plant he’d taken, as well as the withdrawal from it. He’s hotter than he thought possible but shaking violently as if in the arctic. Moving instantly sends him into a fit of nausea that leaves his body weak and Merlin has to strap him down during a particularly violent fit so he doesn’t injure himself. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to eat again, during his fifth time dry heaving into a bin. He thinks he sees Harry come in for a brief time, the first visit since the night he came back high, but he could have imagined it. Schatz holds vigil silently on the side of the bed. The days pass in a blur of pain and sickness and loud voices.

It isn’t until later in the third day that he’s stable enough to lay down for longer than half an hour without something going wrong. He’s exhausted, weary down to his fucking core, and he thinks that this is probably the most effective way to convince kids away from drugs because he’s certainly never touching anything ever again. He also probably won’t be trusting magical forests ever again, because it might’ve given him what he asked for, but it was also a sadistic knob about it.  
  
He wants to sleep, but every time he gets close, his body thinks his heart is stopping and wakes him up in a panic. He resigns himself to staring at the ceiling for the foreseeable future.   
  
Eggsy loses track of time, but he’s pretty sure it’s still the same day when Harry arrives and stirs him from his thoughts. The man is carrying a briefcase and a thermos. Eggsy can catch a whiff of something earthy and spicy wafting from the container and his stomach doesn’t churn at the smell, much to his surprise. Harry takes a seat in the chair to Eggsy’s left and Schatz takes that as its cue to curl up on the bedside for sleep.  
  
The thermos is handed over and Eggsy gladly clutches it weakly between his hands, inhaling the scent. He doesn’t even notice Harry setting up shop until he sees that the briefcase he’d been carrying has been transformed into a small table. His paperwork is set up on the top in neat piles. Eggsy stares at him for a long time.   
“You might want to try drinking that,” Harry says simply, eyes not even moving from the file in his hand. Eggsy isn’t sure how he’s reading it because the lights in the room have been off since he hasn’t quite adjusted to that yet.  
  
Eggsy hesitates. He hasn’t been able to hold down anything all day, and he doubts his body is about to start now. But, he trusts Harry with his life. So why not trust him with this? He flicks open the cap with his thumb and the heady scent intensifies. Still no wave of nausea.  
  
He brings it to his mouth and his hands shake with the effort. His eyes never leave Harry’s face, though the other man pays him no mind. The first sip is the most surprising, the liquid being just the perfect temperature. He’s surprised to find it doesn’t really have a taste, though the texture is thicker than water would be. The drink invokes feelings of being safe and being powerful. Indestructible. His fingers twitch with the desire to just reach out and destroy something because he can.   
  
The liquid pools in his stomach and settles there without making him nauseous all over again. He doesn’t stop drinking until his stomach feels pleasantly full. He hadn’t really realized just how wrecked he was until he finishes drinking only to feel magnitudes better. It feels more like he’s been transplanted into a brand new body, wholly unlike how a gradual recovery feels.   
  
His hands no longer look a sickly pale tinged with green, instead taking on a healthy glow. He gingerly sets the thermos to the side. “S’at one of them healin’ potions?”  
Harry sets his papers aside and folds his hands into his lap. His face is neutral and holds none of the fondness from the days prior. Right, serious business then. Eggsy sits up straighter in the bed.  
  
“You died, Eggsy. Several times,” Harry explains, and his voice never wavers from its passive inflection. He starts at that. Not nearly died, but actually died. Before he can form a response to that, Harry continues. “Merlin had to restart your heart three times in one day alone. We ran a toxicology test on your blood and the plant was different from what we thought. Merlin is looking into it right now because we have no record of this particular flower, but it was much more lethal than we would have imagined. It was destroying your organs.”  
  
That’s a heavy load to process for sure. He can’t even really wrap his mind around it. It feels more like being a third person observer to a tragedy that could have been: sad, but ultimately impersonal. “But it’s fine now, innit? That healin’ shite did wonders.”  
  
His attempt at looking on the bright side gets shut down very quickly when Harry’s gaze turns sharp. “That was not a healing potion. That was diluted ambrosia. Very very rare and extremely hard to come by.” He glances to the side before making eye contact with Eggsy again. “It would appear luck was on your side because I happened upon some by chance earlier this morning.”  
  
Something about his face tells Eggsy that it wasn’t quite as simple as he’s making it seem. In fact, the way Harry is composing himself to the point of being completely aloof is very telling. He slouches very far down the bed again, until his chin is tucked under the thick cotton blanket he was given. “Sorry.”  
  
It goes silent in the room and Eggsy can’t bring himself to look at Harry again. The silence stretches until Harry comes into view once more, this time standing at the doorway of the room with his briefcase back in order. He pauses at the threshold. “Get some rest, Eggsy.”  
  
The ambrosia probably cured whatever exhaustion that had been plaguing him, but he finds himself drifting off in a matter of minutes anyways, the pull towards sleep too strong.


End file.
